Diversified skills are necessary for any serious attempt at MMA

This past weekend James Toney, the current IBA Heavy Weight Champion of the World fought Randy Couture in UFC 118. Toney is one of the top boxers in the world but had no MMA fight experience before his match with Randy Couture. Despite this he fought and was easily beaten by Couture in the 1st round.

Toney is a very accomplished boxer with 116 boxing matches with 73 of them ending with him knocking out his opponent. Watching the fight Saturday none of this helped him at all since he did not take the time to learn the other necessary skills for MMA competition. Couture was able to easily take down Toney in the 1st few seconds of the round, and then he proceeded to beat him and finally choke him out. This looks to have been one of the easiest fights of Couture’s career. This fight is proof again that being the best boxer in the world is worthless if you can not defend a take down and don’t know grappling once you are on your back.

MMA is just that MIXED MARTIAL ARTS. Knowing just one of the necessary skills is a recipe for defeat. In order to be a successful MMA fighter you must know Boxing, Wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and Muay Thai.

This fight was touted as “Boxing vs MMA” but was in fact unprepared MMA fighter vs prepared MMA fighter. Anyone looking to get into the sport of MMA needs to see this as just the latest example of why only knowing only one of the aspects of MMA fighting is insufficient for success in this sport.